An Unshed Tear
The look on my friend’s face as he
told me a snippet of his childhood
has haunted me for nearly
twenty-five years
I thought of him today and when
he shared with me his growing up
in an eye-blink town in the middle
of the harsh Texas Panhandle
His parents divorced when he was
very young and he and his mother
moved back home with his grandmother
Being raised by his mother, grandmother,
and a gaggle of aunts in an
old school family with no male role model
and too many ‘old lady’ rules
shaped his life
Tears gather as he talked
but never escaped
…Big boys don’t cry and all
that Southern Bullshit
…Never show emotions
Still upper lip
You know the drill
He continued the story by
telling me his father, new wife
and teenage son now lived
in the rural Texas town where
I grew up and my mother
still lived
Asking if I knew them
I replied … No, but the
name and their business
were both familiar to me
His teenage half-brother was a
local star athlete he told me
‘My father now has the son
I could never be’
were the words that
brought tears to his
middle-aged eyes
Those words stuck with me
all the years
as did the unshed tears
Deep inside that little boy
raised by all those women
blamed himself for the loss
of his father …
his family …
And perhaps what might
have been a different life
Copyright © 2017 Annie
Always…I wish you peace, joy and happiness, but most of all I wish you Love.
As Ever, Annie
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